U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who has made past comments that raised questions about her religious sensitivity, prayed in a telephone prayer service recently that God would “bring the hearts and minds of our Jewish brothers and sisters into alignment.”

A Harris spokeswoman said Friday that the Longboat Key Republican, who has advocated electing Christian officeholders, was talking about converting Jews to vote Republican, not to Christianity. ~The Tampa Tribune

Queen Esther is the gift that keeps on giving.  Bloggers everywhere will have to be sorry to see Kathy go, since she has provided most of the levity and fun for this election cycle in the midst of a generally dreary, nasty campaign.  Admit it, folks, you will miss her when she’s gone.  She was one of a kind, and we will not see a candidate like her for another generation.  That’s a claim that will almost certainly be vindicated, since no one in his right mind would ever run a campaign as badly as Rep. Harris has done. 

What could have been better than the candidate who one day says that you have to vote for Christians or you will be legislating sin (I attempted to offer an explanation of what Harris might have meant in her interview) and who then turns around the next day and declares her firm belief in Judeo-Christian values and her unwavering support for Israel?  (The funny thing is that she was convinced that she was being absolutely consistent and serious throughout all of this.)  This is the same candidate who throws things at her own staffers and has been through four campaign managers in a year, who has a near compulsive need to have her specific coffee order from Starbucks (and has staffers plot driving routes accordingly!), who compares herself to Queen Esther and who recently said of evangelicals, “We’re all sort of Jewish wannabes.”  Now that she has spent the last few weeks of her campaign showing just how enthusiastic she is about Jewish voters in Florida, she comes up with a prayer to bring them into alignment!  She means Republican alignment, of course–she would never dream of doing anything so sordid or theocratic as praying for the salvation of her Jewish brethren, whom she must, if we take her at her word, want to be like. 

Now I would frankly have a lot less of a problem with Harris if she were praying for the conversion of her Jewish brethren.  That seems to be to be a perfectly acceptable thing for a Christian to do, whether or not it offends this or that group.  Orthodox Christians pray for an end to all heresies and schisms and for all people to come to a knowledge of the truth, and there is no reason why Protestants cannot and would not do the same.  That is why I find it both hard to believe and obnoxious that Harris actually thinks it is better to be calling on God to swing the vote to the GOP than to pray for the conversion and salvation of non-Christians.  I know politicians have to lie, but must they lie so badly? 

But there is an alternative.  Worse than lying, Harris might actually have been praying for Republican votes, which strikes me as infinitely worse than any accusation of prejudice or intolerance that praying for the conversion of Jewish people in Florida would have brought down.  Is it not far better, from a Christian perspective, to pray for the illumination of those outside the Faith than to pray for them to vote for you?  Perhaps I have missed something.  

I can and do believe that God changes the hearts of men and works wonders and bestows grace upon them–but do we really believe that God turns certain demographics to one party or another based on prayer requests?  I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is probably not what the Lord meant when he said, If you ask anything in My name, I will do it (Jn. 14:4).  This prayer request for GOP votes–if we accept the “excuse” her campaign gave–is like some unholy marriage between Karl Rove and the prosperity gospel. 

The Tribune story concludes with the perfect ending:

Campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Marks said Harris’ reference to alignment of Jews meant that “the Jewish community historically voted Democratic. She was expressing her hope that the Jewish voters will recognize that she shares their ethics and values.” 

I’m going to bet that they don’t “recognise” anything of the kind.